Finally! HBOGo without Cable TV! Sort of...

It has been a very long time since we had cable in our home.  My littlest guy is turning 4 in November, and it was before he was born that we finally told Comcast, DISH and anyone else to take a hike.  We only have Internet service through Comcast.  We don't have a choice as to who delivers our Internet, so we have to pay the Big Red Machine something... but we have a nice big Internet pipe at a reasonable price, so no complaints about that really.  We also subscribe to Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu+ that we watch on our iPads, iPhones, Roku, PS3 and AppleTVs.  In addition to that, I buy the MLB.TV baseball subscription each year.  Let's me watch my Royals, Yankees and Pirates games at will.  It is working out quite nicely, honestly.

But I've always said that if HBO would follow the same subscription model as Netflix or MLB.TV, we'd certainly subscribe to it.  But no, HBO still insists that you have a subscription to HBO via one of the big cable companies so -- sorry - no HBO.  And at this point, with True Blood and Boardwalk Empire pretty much done, we don't care.

And then AT&T came out with this... they have a deal where if you subscribe to their Internet with basic channels for $39/ month they will give you HBO with HBO Go and Amazon Prime as part of the deal.  Not too bad, right?  I mean... Amazon Prime is $89/year alone.  But, of course there is a catch.  OK, a couple.  First you have to subscribe for a year, and if you cancel you get hit with $180 service charge.  Installation is $99 and only includes one set-top box.  Television is not in HD (but HBO Go is).  Cable Modem rental is $7 a month and the price goes up to $120/month after one year.  

Obviously AT&T has felt the pinch, as I'm sure other cable providers are feeling.  So they made an effort here, but it seems like they simply veiled the same old type of package with some shiny digital add-ons.  It looks like in year one, it's not a bad deal.  After that it is the same old cable company rip off price switching that we have been putting up with forever.

Thanks, but no thanks AT&T.  You still don't get it.  We don't need cable.

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Bruce has worked in educational technology for over 18 years and has implemented several 1:1/BYOD programs.  He also has served as a classroom teacher in Computer Science, History and English classes.  Bruce is the author of five books: Sands of Time, Towering Pines Volume One:Room 509, The Star of Christmas, Philadelphia Story: A Lance Carter Detective Novel and The Insider's Story: A Lance Carter Detective Novel.  Follow Bruce's Novel releases by subscribing to his FREE newsletter!

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